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Guys what is the service life of the Walther P99AS in terms of ammunition fired? How many rounds before parts breakages? Are there parts that are prone to failure on these? Any parts I should stock up for?

Basically wanting to know of any problems to look out for on a high round count pistol.

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Morning Spunk.....hey' no worries....stock up on ammunition, rather than spare parts. Only thing that you might want to pick up as a spare is a recoil spring....NOT because they break....but after 100,000 rounds you might want to think about replacing it.

Your question leads me to believe you are coming to Walther from Glocks, as most Glock owners seem to have a preoccupation with hoarding spare parts, or at least it seems that way by their posts on the 'net.

A recoil spring change somewhere beyond 5000 rounds is the only thing I can think that would be remotely necessary.

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I shoot about 5,000 rounds of 9mm a year but always like to look at the long term. I know some guns out there have weaknesses in parts that need to be changed on a regular basis and was wondering if the P99 is similar. For example the Berettas need new locking blocks and trigger springs every so often etc.

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My experience is the recoil spring lasts way beyond 5k at least on the full size which has a flat wire spring. I've personally had P99s with well into the high teens that were like new since I cycled through the original to the new frames and then to long paddle versions. I keep a set of spare springs for the striker and such but have never had a failure thankfully. I keep a spare compact RSA and a couple of full size RSA assemblies but to be honest, it's not a big deal and I used to swap just because.

Like everything, it depends on your use and if I didn't have range and carry guns I would treat it differently. A carry gun gets shot maybe 500 rounds to verify function, and make sure nothing is showing any kind of weird wear. Then it goes into rotation and is shot only once every few months at most mainly since I'm going to clean and re-lube so I may as well shoot it. I'm in Nevada so if I were near salt water or doing a ton of sweating, I would check it more.

I keep range guns and mags that never go into carry rotation so they are allowed to get filthy and mags are dropped, get rocks and sand in them etc. I pretty much just give the occasional drop of lube and clean every few shoots so it could be as low as a little over a thousand to a couple of thousand rounds. The main purpose of cleaning is not for function really as a little lube will keep a P99 running in my experience, it is to check for wear and inspect components. The only real issue I ever have is mag related and that is not so much a desert sand issue as a local range where they have a weird gravel that occasionally causes a mag hang-up. I keep ten mags in my range bag for range only use and if the same one has an issue I will just remove the floor plate and clean followed by some Mag-Slick dry spray from Brownells which some of the heavy competition guys turned me on to. Unless you're running frame pounding +p loads all the time I would expect the average P99 to run comparable to Glocks with 6 figure round counts with only the occasional spring swap. You will spend many multiples the cost of the gun in ammo before you ever have issues. That said, if you plan to carry and run it a lot, I would have range and carry stuff for peace of mind. Any gun I carry, I have at least two of.

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My experience is the recoil spring lasts way beyond 5k at least on the full size which has a flat wire spring. I've personally had P99s with well into the high teens that were like new since I cycled through the original to the new frames and then to long paddle versions. I keep a set of spare springs for the striker and such but have never had a failure thankfully. I keep a spare compact RSA and a couple of full size RSA assemblies but to be honest, it's not a big deal and I used to swap just because.

Like everything, it depends on your use and if I didn't have range and carry guns I would treat it differently. A carry gun gets shot maybe 500 rounds to verify function, and make sure nothing is showing any kind of weird wear. Then it goes into rotation and is shot only once every few months at most mainly since I'm going to clean and re-lube so I may as well shoot it. I'm in Nevada so if I were near salt water or doing a ton of sweating, I would check it more.

I keep range guns and mags that never go into carry rotation so they are allowed to get filthy and mags are dropped, get rocks and sand in them etc. I pretty much just give the occasional drop of lube and clean every few shoots so it could be as low as a little over a thousand to a couple of thousand rounds. The main purpose of cleaning is not for function really as a little lube will keep a P99 running in my experience, it is to check for wear and inspect components. The only real issue I ever have is mag related and that is not so much a desert sand issue as a local range where they have a weird gravel that occasionally causes a mag hang-up. I keep ten mags in my range bag for range only use and if the same one has an issue I will just remove the floor plate and clean followed by some Mag-Slick dry spray from Brownells which some of the heavy competition guys turned me on to. Unless you're running frame pounding +p loads all the time I would expect the average P99 to run comparable to Glocks with 6 figure round counts with only the occasional spring swap. You will spend many multiples the cost of the gun in ammo before you ever have issues. That said, if you plan to carry and run it a lot, I would have range and carry stuff for peace of mind. Any gun I carry, I have at least two of.

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I like to think that if the "firing pins" (I'm assuming you mean strikers) were breaking on these pistols, that I've done enough studying up on the design to where I would have heard about it.

I think you're mistaking this for another design. Striker failures are rare on these pistols. By the way, there was another thread on P99 longevity not too long ago. I believe it is still on the first page in this section of the forum.

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Spunk, you're reading about the wrong gun. The P99's do not have a firing pin.....they have a striker. AND more importantly, the're are NO reports of the strikers failing in Walther P99's or P99C's or SW99's or MR9's or PPQ's for that matter. ALL these pistols use the same basic design.....they ALL have strikers and NONE of them are experiencing striker/firing pin breakages.

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The article is from 2014 and, to put it in perspective, it deals with just ONE incident in which the police officer involved luckily escaped serious injury due to wearing safety glasses. The article is not clear on whether the pistol involved was an Ulmer P99 or from the Polish Radom production (I would assume the latter).

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Since 2001 this weapon has been the part of the equipment of Polish Police and since the same year WALTHER P99 cal. 9 mm pistols have been manufactured in “ŁUCZNIK” Metal Works (now the
“ŁUCZNIK” Arms Factory in Radom).

I haven't heard of anyone with these complaints from a P99 pistol actually made at the Walther plant. Other than maybe the 1911 and CZ-75, is there any other design that has been copied by so many other manufacturers?

That PDF stated that with excessive dry firing, the breechface on the slide could fail, causing the primer of the next round fired to push the breechface to the rear, pushing the striker assembly to the rear, breaking the slide cap, launching the slide assembly towards the shooter, and possibly injuring the shooter.

I have heard of breechface failures on Glock pistols from excessive dry firing, but never on a 99-series pistol. Conversations around the topic seem to suggest than the amount of dry firing that causes this on Glock pistols, numbers in the tens of thousands, if not more, and this is generally seen only on instructors' or competition shooters' pistols.

It is interesting to hear that it is possible on the P99. But one instance, on a pistol not made by Walther, and only after what may be excessive dry firing, does not concern me very much. I wouldn't have an issue buying a Glock either.

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